Deafheaven
Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

THE REVIEW

The new album begins with a piano riff that echoes that one song by Adele, oh well. Then the other little instruments come in, and out comes a lulling post-rock neoclassical ditty of an already fairly illegal length (7:36), but on the other hand, we're talking about Deafheaven, and even if the #metal component hasn't shown up yet, the band is also known for always packing in generous doses of post-rock, the sleepiest genre of all. So it's all fine, intro offloaded with a surprising choice, and let's move on to the second track.

The second and third tracks, "Honeycomb" and "Canary Yellow," start to get quite nasty. The fairly hard-to-digest black-metal tirades begin, those dark ones with a few scattered flashes of light, deep, enveloping, incendiary and abrasive drums, torrents and torrents of well-furred guitars. They're okay, you know, maybe two tracks over 10 minutes one after the other are a bit heavy, but every now and then they throw in a breather aka the melodic post-rock swirl, though after less than two minutes they've already turned a bit nasty again, so screw it at some point. It's a matter of style, I guess.

I skip "Near" because I don't feel like in 2018 giving weight to those who copy Slowdive, and even less to those who try to redo Mojave 3, who were even better.

"Glint" is really cool, possibly the best of the album, even though I haven't listened to the last track yet. This is truly a beautiful black-gaze monolith (whatever that means), an immersive, total emotional experience. Meanwhile, the singer George Clarke continues to do his duty, perfectly personifying the eagle with laryngitis that every day tore at Prometheus's belly, devouring his liver with a hooked beak.

"Night People" features Chelsea Wolfe, a goth-folk singer, for a track that is indeed a goth-folk piece, so everything is regular, if not for the fact that it doesn't thrill me that much. But in the end, I think, it will serve as the calm before the storm...

And indeed we arrive at the conclusive "Worthless Animal." This one's beautiful too: sound whirlpools and whirlpools in a mega post-metal ballad split between crystalline thin guitars and hard, robust guitar riffs. One really nice thing about this album is its embrace of hard-rock without fear of sounding uncool: finally, those assertive solos return, proudly continuing their journey of life even through the storms of all the cruel days, through the fire and the flames. It's something that you don't hear ostentatiously that often, so hats off.

Unlike the previous “Sunbather” and “New Bermuda,” totally dark, existential, and nihilistic, this new album by Deafheaven throws in a bit of everything, trying to please just about everyone, which in their position - “too hipster to be metal, too metal to really appeal to hipsters” - means practically pleasing no one. So kudos to them for still being in the game. I just wanted to say that this imposing and magnificent album sounds way cooler when filtered and compressed through shitty laptop speakers. Thanks, Deafheaven, now back to listening to Earl Sweatshirt.